Is it just me, or is everybody and his brother designing websites for a living?

Don't get me wrong; I've got nothing at all against competent professionals practicing their trade. In fact, I myself have designed websites professionally, and tend to be quite good at it, from most of the comments I get. (I also happen to do all the coding for Get Off The Cross!) Maybe that's why I get so upset at these clueless gits who think that buying a copy of PageMill or FrontPage or some other so-called WYSIWYG editor means they're immediately capable of churning out professional-quality websites.

If you've found this zine, you've almost certainly seen me speak out about something - whether it's the simple explanation of how GOTC got its name, one of the rants on my personal website, or some email I've posted on one of several mailing lists. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that this particular rant was instigated by an inflammatory message I posted on, in this case, the hwg-basics mailing list.

For those of you who haven't heard of it, the HTML Writers Guild (HWG) is a loose association of HTML authors. However, despite the apparent implications of the name, absolutely no qualifications are required to join this group. All you need is an email address and one-time access to the Web to sign up, and you get a nifty little graphic to put on your pages and everything. What this means in practical terms is that any git, no matter how clueless, can use membership in this group to pretend he's competent in the art of website design. Y'see, while those of us in the Guild are perfectly aware that any warm body can join up, people outside the Guild usually aren't aware of this; they see that nifty-looking logo and think it actually means something...so rank beginners can join the Guild and hang out their shingle, and they look just as credible as a competent web designer.

A sterling example of this phenomenon took place last weekend. I didn't notice the original post, which concerned a problem with a given page crashing some browsers, but I saw a followup which asked if requesting help on a page which advertised one's web design services was a new form of spamming. While I was saddened (but not especially surprised) by this post, I wasn't moved to comment at the time. What did get my attention was the second message from the original Bad Dog (her alias, not my term), which was a whiny "what did I do wrong?" message to the effect that she had received several negative responses, so she wanted to know what she'd done to attract this ire.

I responded, in my own irreverent and less-than-PC style, that it is bad form for her to claim she's "just a beginner" and thus deserving of help on a website, when in actuality she's selling her design services and therefore representing herself as a professional designer who knows what she's doing...and that perhaps it was growing resentment for exactly that sort of person which spurred those negative responses. Furthermore, I opined, it speaks extremely poorly of one's design talents when the front page to the site which advertises those "talents" crashes browsers...and you can't even fix that. I went on to use this particular poster as a prime example of a growing class of web designers who have no idea what they're doing, but have no qualms about charging money for their design "expertise," and went so far as to say that if she didn't know her craft, she shouldn't be practicing it. In other words, I find their lack of ethical conduct appalling, and I'm not ashamed to say so.

I imagine it's no surprise that I caught unholy Hell for daring to utter such blasphemy. Several people attacked my behavior by trying to hide behind my title of "Reverend", not realizing (a) that other faiths besides Christianity ordain people with this title, or even (b) that Jesus Himself was much less than kind and inoffensive on some occasions, such as the famed incident with the moneychangers in the Temple. Other people said I should have been more tolerant of this beginner, and that we all have to learn sometime. What all of the people in both of those groups overlooked was the double main thrust of my post: that I used her as an example of a larger group of people who had raised my ire, and that it is precisely because she's a beginner who's trying to market her services as a professional that I commented as I did. (And despite her comments to the list that all of her clients know she's a beginner, her design services page makes absolutely no mention of her beginning status. In fact, she's willing to design any site from the most basic personal pages to the most complex corporate sites. Those are not the words of a beginner who wishes to make her status as such clear, but rather of someone who wants to be taken as a competent professional.) On the other hand, I did get some support - most of it in private email instead of on the list, but generally saying that they were glad I'd had the guts to say something that needed to be said, and that they were in full agreement.

Anyhow, the fight raged on for a while, with my detractors saying I should go easy on her because she's just a beginner, and me trying to make it clear that you need to know what you're doing before you go into business doing it. After all, as one of my supporters pointed out, dissecting a frog in high school doesn't mean you're ready to go out into the world and make a name for yourself as a surgeon. I myself pointed out that while I know how to hold a hammer and how to pound a nail into wood, that doesn't make me a skilled carpenter. (The really interesting thing is, the longer the discussion progressed, the more supporters spoke up in proportion to my detractors.)

Ultimately, the Bad Dog posted again. She reiterated her original request for help, and went on to say that due to the recent brouhaha, she was starting a new section on her website devoted to speaking out. Naturally, I was interested in what she had to say - and if you're interested, feel free to check it out [page now gone] for yourself. The upshot of it is, she got mad because people (not naming me in particular, but quite obviously referring to me in context) got upset when she started demeaning their field of expertise. Besides the psychological implications inherent in the repeated use of the canine metaphor to refer to herself, I found it intriguing that she had so far managed to miss every relevant point in all of my posts.

To put it bluntly, the Bad Dog is irrelevant to my points except as a case study. She merely serves as a handy example of one of my pet peeves: someone who doesn't understand the basics of HTML, yet sells their services as a web designer. I was no more singling her out than I did the guy who couldn't understand a simple and clear JavaScript error message, yet continued in his attempts to put JavaScript on his pages. Sorry if that bruises her ego, but there it is. She was merely in the right place at the right time to spark a discussion that ultimately had almost nothing to do with her personally. Yet, she missed all that and took my comments personally, when in fact I was addressing a wider problem.

So what did the Big Bad Rev. Bob do in response? I fixed her problem...in public, where everyone could see exactly what sort of excrement she was writing in the guise of HTML, and what the correct way to accomplish that design would be. In doing so, I reduced the argument to an objective question: does her level of skill match the level she advertises? Quite obviously, it does not. I therefore assert that her implied claims of professional-level skill are fraudulent, and that she should correct that mistaken impression - either by withdrawing from the web design business until she has that level of skill, or by clearly stating in her ad pages that she is a mere beginner. Either solution would solve her tremendous (and, to me, personally and professionally offensive) breach of professional ethics by clarifying the truth of the matter.

Here's the moral of the story. Actually, there are a few of them:

1. If you don't know what you're doing, don't pretend otherwise. That's basic ethical behavior.
2. You can't have it both ways, and if you try, you'll wind up in hot water. Pick your story and stick to it.
3. Take responsibility for your work, your actions, your words, and your skill. I'm not at all ashamed of my actions in this discussion, because I've been in the hot seat before and I knew my comments this time would put me there again. Furthermore, I am proud to stick by my opinions and will defend my position in this discussion.
4. Sensitivity is one thing. Lying to further someone's delusions is completely different and - like all forms of political correctness - should be completely and utterly done away with. Before you soft-pedal your comments, ask yourself if you're really doing anyone a favor in doing so. In this instance, I would not have been, so I did not.
5. There's never any shame in being honest, no matter how much it offends someone. In fact, the more someone's offended by something, the more likely it is that they needed to be confronted with it.

That's all for now; I'll be back later. Come back any time, and email is always welcome.

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